At the THOMSEN GROUP® International Strategy Consultants, or TGISC®, we are not generalists.
Rather, we are specialists in market strategies.
For over 27 years, TGISC® has used the 5P System* to develop solutions (like product innovations) for the world of tomorrow that already fascinate today. And along the way, we’ve created market leaders.

When you choose TGISC®, you are choosing much more than experience alone.
(Because, after all, experience is rooted in the past.)
On the other hand, TGISC® represents proven opportunities for the future.

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We develop concepts for new products. Or for the enhancement of existing products.

90% of all new products die.
A few products, on the other hand, swim successfully away.
These have one thing in common: They are each as distinctive as the hammerhead shark!

Find out more about Product Development

We develop and manage pricing strategies. Once a customer has decided to make a purchase, the product’s price is the final hurdle before the sale. And in a sea of products, price is an important symbol of your product’s quality, performance, and image.

Like the highly developed eyes of a lantern shark, pricing is an illuminating means of communication in a murky sea
of product variety.

Find out more about Price-Strategies

Distribution is more than just saying “You can buy me here”. We develop and manage marketing strategies.

Your product must be as unmistakably recognizable as the shark:
You must have a smooth, and yes, sometimes even an uncommon channel of distribution in order to clearly differentiate from the masses and reach your target group. The bull shark shows us how it’s done: Unlike other sharks, it also frequents fresh water.

Find out more about Placement-Strategies

When brands are working and cash registers ringing, it’s usually because the necessary conditions are met: A product can fascinate only if it’s known. And only a product that fascinates will be bought.

We develop and implement communication-strategies.

This is the exact same dilemma the great white shark finds itself in. It is the best known and most fascinating of its species. And it’s polarizing. Just like with good communications: There’s no need to be at the top outside of your target group. But inside your target group, absolutely!

Find out more about Promotion-Strategies

In a services company, employees are important, and to a certain extent they are the product. But even premium products are nothing without enthusiastic employees, like the marketing staff. We develop and realize human capital strategies that integrate, inform, and motivate people.

Just as the thresher shark’s huge tail herds together the most different fishes, also does a shared fascination
bring employees together.

Find out more about People-Strategies

For us, the client’s interests, not those of TGISC®, take center stage: we keep our focus on the long-term. We can assure our own future only by ensuring the success of our clients. Never by making the quick and easy sale.

A first-class solution is always more important to us than a first-class fee. Not that we turn up our noses at the latter. But given the choice, we always choose the better solution.
For example, recently we turned down a million-dollar contract in southern Europe because our work would be based on unfounded directives rather than on validated methodologies. This is probably a very good example of what “dignity” means to the THOMSEN GROUP. And by the way, it’s one of the character traits held in esteem by the citizens of Hamburg.

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For around 10 years, all of the THOMSEN GROUP charitable donations have focused on “Kreative für Kinder”, an endowment founded by us that provides care for children in need, both nationally and globally.

In many projects, we have to consider the forward-looking concepts of social, ecological, and corporate responsibility. And while these concepts were gaining in significance elsewhere, the THOMSEN GROUP had already made them part of their culture.

Our earth’s resources, for example, are after all limited. But big ideas are often preceded by small actions. One example—we were using both sides of the paper already a year before the former german foreign minister Joschka Fischer, who represents the Green Party, became the minister of the environment in the german state of Hessen.

We see futures studies more as a way to obtain a baseline of knowledge. And that’s why we don’t view futurists around the world as the competition. Every day, our teams work — without clients — to broaden this baseline of knowledge. But that’s not enough for us. Long before a new job requires the results of our futures studies, a lot of the groundwork is already laid.

Because the THOMSEN GROUP works analytically and systematically, our on-going monitoring process exposes societal phenomena in all their — often finely differentiated — forms. We monitor continuously and then consolidate information gleaned from the multi-faceted pieces of the puzzle. On-going, branch(-spanning) studies serve as the diagnosis as well as a means to adequately prognosticate short-term, medium-term, and long-term developments. Global paradigms identify far-reaching changes in technology, economics, and ecology that manifest themselves as societal trends; for example, as demographic variables, psychographic variables, and value change. Finally, individual paradigms identify changing truths, understandings, and motives of target groups. Effects on branches and branch segments are continually studied.

The on-going monitoring process takes place independently of any given client. Dovetailing with this on-going monitoring, the individual monitoring process is started based on a specific client’s requirements. To do this, the knowledge gained from the on-going monitoring is consolidated into hypotheses and prepared for the subsequent round(s) of market research. At the start of the individual monitoring process, all results and studies from the on-going monitoring are scanned for topics relevant to the specific client.

What results is a task-focused compilation that is then subjected to an interdisciplinary examination by our psychologists, sociologists, political and business economists, communications experts, as well as representatives from many other disciplines. The individual monitoring also involves a pointed study of any potentials that exist. (The importance of this work is seen in the fact that already in 1989, more than 39% of all marketing strategies had to be changed because trends and paradigms were not adequately followed!)

Solutions for tomorrow are useful to our clients only if they are already fascinating — and therefore already work — today. The THOMSEN GROUP answers these questions with the LiveResearch® System. Timing is just as important. Most players are much too late. But it’s just as dangerous to be too early with a product innovation. This danger is also eliminated with LiveResearch®. Know what fascinates people today. LiveResearch®.

With LiveResearch®, the THOMSEN GROUP works with both open-ended and closed questions in order to provide the most comprehensive study of the topic. The open-ended questions, which are the big benefit of qualitative research, typically cannot be answered with a single word or even a single sentence. For example, these might be association questions to determine what buyers want. Closed questions, on the other hand, which are the minority in our research, can be answered relatively quickly and unambiguously. 

The face of the target group: With LiveResearch®, the THOMSEN GROUP uses the direct field and lab survey tools developed for qualitative social research. The decisive difference: We record every single interview on film for subsequent analysis. Not only our clients see the faces of their (potential) customers, we can also evaluate the video materials for important cues, such as the validity of responses or the social background of survey participants. This means we have access to information not available in this form using quantitative market research methods. The analysis of non-verbal expressions, such as demeanor, facial expressions, and hand gestures, provide information not available with conventional methods.

In addition, because our LiveResearch® films the market research sessions, clients are afforded a high degree of transparency. Because they are filmed, many results — provided on a separate report tape if requested — can be reviewed at any time. We present the most important results to our clients in our multimedia presentation, and will provide this “video documentation” to the client on DVD upon request. This gives our clients ready access to their “customers” whenever questions arise. It is also an important tool for communicating with supervisory boards, partners, potential future investors, etc., as well as with market participants.

The THOMSEN GROUP also uses secondary market research and the data from available studies —although these are usually quantitative. Secondary market research is important for two reasons. First, it provides a basis for competition analysis, and second, it forms the indispensable foundation for the primary market research phase. Secondary research is an on-going background process, because answers must be found immediately to questions that crop up during strategy development.

TGISC®’s future proof 5P System is succesfully represented in different markets:

• Banks, insurances, business services. (Financial service providers, open and closed funds, business services)
• High Tech. (Media, telecommunication, hardware and software IT services)
• Consumer. (Wholesalers and retailers, tourism, leisure, consumer goods, fast moving consumer goods, food, shopping-center, private services)
• Real estate. (Office, living, entertainment, shopping, logistics)
• Energy. (Oil, gas, raw materials, electricity, water, wind)
• Industry. (Vehicle industry, transportation, traffic, chemistry, investment goods)
• Health care. (Medicine (technology), health insurance providers, hospitals, bio-technology, pharmacy, wellness/fitness)
• Public. (Public sector)

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It’s very important for us. Our motivation allows us to present better solutions than other strategy consultants every single day. It’s the glue that hold us together. It’s our life blood. The first time you speak with your new colleagues, you will understand why not only our clients, but also our employees stay with us longer than anywhere else. We won’t allow anyone to dampen our spirit!

The personal development and advancement of our employees is important to us. That’s why we don’t just hire trainers as our “professors”, we draw upon the members of our board. They don’t wear helmets. Nor do they have swords. But sparring is common. That’s because the TGISC® College is a school of thought where discussions can heat up. And this is where the real value is found.

Trainees (i.e., interns) as well as participants in one of our entry-level programs who meet our standards are offered a place at the TGISC® College.  Our professionals also use our college, which offers an outstanding coaching program.

And then there are the small things: The penthouse offices nestled above the rooftops of Hamburg, the perfect transport connections, the innumerable parking places (for both cars and bicycles), the quality of break-times spent in the immediate vicinity, where we find ourselves even more inspired by the multicultural public. Which is probably why any thought blockages usually fall victim to a virtual wrecking ball within a week at TGISC®. Welcome to the open-minded company!

They are cosmopolitan with varied interests and are dedicated. Most have a “never-say-never” attitude written all over their face. It’s their enjoyment of their jobs that allow us to achieve so much for our clients.

TGISC® offers you opportunities for advancement, even to become a managing partner, as long as you can identify with the old, but completely modern, virtues held in such esteem in Hamburg ... virtues like style, dignity, and courage. And they don’t just move you forward, they move something else quite distinctly upward: Your smile. 

Success isn’t achieved by trying to avoid mistakes; it’s achieved by working harder than the rest. Sure, mistakes can happen. That’s okay with us. But any given mistake should happen only once. Success is like climbing stairs. Step by step, you get closer to the top. A mistake might cause you to pause briefly on a step. But because you don’t make the same mistake twice, you soon move on to the next step.